‘RYLAND FEELS THE LOVE’: Brentsville High athlete deals with brain cancer. PAGE 11
July 8, 2020 | Vol. 19, No. 28 | www.princewilliamtimes.com | 50¢ Covering Prince William County and surrounding communities, including Gainesville, Haymarket, Dumfries, Occoquan, Quantico and the cities of Manassas and Manassas Park.
See PrinceWilliamTimes.com for coronavirus updates
Local health district slow to ramp up contact tracing 46 of 260 new tracers hired so far By Daniel Berti
Times Staff Writer
The symptoms of the coronavirus are by now well known: a fever, cough and sore throat are signs you may need a test. But many people who get sick can become contagious before experiencing symptoms and unknowingly pass on the virus to others. One of the only ways to break the chain of COVID-19 infections is through contact tracing, a process in which public health workers call someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 to help
‘An honor well deserved’
them remember the people with whom they had close contact while they were contagious. Then it’s a race against the clock to inform those who might have been exposed. A close contact is defined as anyone who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting from two days before they fell ill. The aim of contact tracing is to encourage those individuals to get tested or self-isolate to keep them from infecting anyone else. But it’s only successful if the contacted individuals follow the recommendations, and if local health departments have enough contact tracers to handle their incoming positive cases. Experts say about 30 health workers are need-
ed for every 100,000 people during the pandemic to carry out effective contact tracing. But while states have been quick to begin the hiring process, it’s difficult to measure how successful these programs have been, or whether they have hired enough workers. In Virginia, the state’s health department announced in May it would partner with local health districts to hire 1,300 new contact tracers across the state. But the agency has not made its contact-tracing metrics public, leaving it up to local health officials to provide information to area residents. See TRACING, page 2
Namesakes for ‘Unity’ schools
Family, friends reflect on schools’ new namesakes
Teachers decry planning By Jill Palermo
Times Staff Writer
By Angela Roberts
Prince William County teachers gathered Friday to express their frustration over a planning process for reopening schools they say has mostly excluded them. Wearing masks and carrying handmade signs saying, “Listen to teachers” and “I want to live to see your child graduate,” about 75 educators, supporters and local elected officials assembled outside Edward L. Kelly Leadership Center to voice their concerns about reopening schools safely and their impatience with administrators who have so far released few details about the school division’s plans for the coming school year.
Special to the Times
When Monique Braxton told her father the Prince William County School Board planned to change the names of what were then Stonewall Jackson High School and Stonewall Middle School, he was doubtful. “He said, ‘Oh, they’ll never do that,’” she recalled. But come next fall, students will no longer walk under the name of a Confederate general when they arrive at school. Instead, at the high school, they’ll be greeted by the name of a longtime security assistant who devoted himself to lifting up students and faculty, alike. At the middle school, they’ll enter under the name of two local civil rights trailblazers who fought for integration in both the county and the military: Monique Braxton’s parents, Carroll and Celestine Braxton. Of the three local heroes, only retired Marine Master Gunnery Sgt. Carroll Braxton, 95, remains alive today. His wife died in 2014 at the age of 88, and the security assistant, Arthur Reed, died in 2018 at 70. But Braxton says his wife would have been just as excited as he was to hear the school where she once taught will now bear their name. “It’s quite an honor,” he said. Family and friends of the new namesakes say it’s an honor well deserved. They shared memories about the ways in which Reed and the Braxtons empowered Prince William County’s children, and all agreed: Their legacy is one that will continue to reverberate throughout Manassas. See HONOR, page 4
‘Why are you excluding us?’
See TEACHERS, page 4
The Prince William County School Board on June 29 renamed the former Stonewall Jackson High and Stonewall Middle for three local Black heroes: Arthur Reed, a beloved high school school security guard who died in 2018 (top left) and Carroll and Celestine Braxton, civil rights trailblazers in local schools and the U.S. Marine Corps. (top right, bottom left and right).
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PHOTO BY DELIA ENGSTROM
Prince William County teacher Beth Fredette, right, holds a sign during the July 3 rally outside the Edward L. Kelly Administration Building.
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